Sleep Torture

For several nights after Tyler was over his jet lag, our evenings went something like this. Tyler would get a bath, put in PJs, read to, fed, fall asleep feeding, and placed in his crib. Then, 30 minutes or so later, he'd wake up crying and Daddy or I would spend the next 30 minutes or more trying to get him back to sleep, only to have him wake up again about 30 minutes later. It was a vicious cycle that we needed to stop. So, we talked about sleep training, watched the "Sleep Easy Solution" DVD (Daddy fell asleep watching it), and dove right in.

Basically, the DVD, like many other methods said babies don't know how to put themselves to sleep and need to learn. To do this parents must establish a sleep routine so the baby knows bedtime is coming and then put the baby in the crib awake and let them cry and figure it out. Ouch. The differences in the methods seem to be how much attention you pay the baby while they are crying. This method said to go in at 5 minutes, reassure the baby from a distance for less than 30 seconds, wait another 10 minutes, reassure the baby again, and then go in every 15 minutes until the baby falls asleep.

OK, we can do this. It's for T's own good. He needs to learn to self sooth and sleep. And, the women on the DVD said "sleep nutrition" is essential.

Night One: We decided our bedtime routine would be bath, jammies, feed (making sure he doesn't fall asleep while feeding), read, sleep. The feeding and not sleeping was hard. Tyler kept dozing off and the poor guy had us doing whatever we could to keep him awake. Then, we read a short book knowing he was tired, kissed him lots and lots, and put him into the crib and walked out of his room. The crying promptly began. We did as we were told. Daddy went in first at 5 minutes. Then Mommy 10 minutes later. Daddy thought that T howled a lot louder when Mommy tried to sooth him. When Daddy went in 15 minutes later, Mommy thought the same. So, we decided we should let him be. As we approached the hour marker (yup, that's right, ONE HOUR of non-stop whaling), we discussed giving up. But, then it seemed awful that we had already let T cry for so long so we decided to go 15 more minutes. At one hour and twelve minutes, he gave up crying and fell asleep with really loud hiccups and didn't wake up for almost 7 hours, before needing a feed. Not bad.

Night Two: We dreaded having to do this all over again. We contemplated quitting, but then decided that would be mean since we already made him cry the night before. So, we did the same routine again, but with no check ins. 39 minutes later, he was asleep, again with really loud hiccups. This time he slept for only 5 hours before waking for a feed, but that's OK. I actually think he might have not eaten enough during the day.

Night Three (tonight): Sleep training works. We did our routine and after many kisses, into his crib T went. After only 8 minutes of some tame crying, he fell asleep. Seriously? Could it be?

I've been told that at this point (5 months and over 15 lbs), T should be able to sleep through the night. That is, that he should be able to sleep a full 11-12 hour stretch. Honestly, though, I don't mind having to wake up once a night. He nurses in less than 10 minutes and is back asleep in no time. I have to get up anyway to go to the bathroom. If anything, I need to sleep train myself to stop doing that first. =)

Now that it seems we have the night time sleep sorted out, the question is, do we work on his naps... I quite enjoy taking a nap with him a day when possible and letting him take naps whenever he falls asleep, but apparently, good naps equals good night time sleep. Ugh.